BJ 

37 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


1 


GIFT    OF 


Class 


THE   NEW   ETHICS 


AN    ESSAY    ON 


THE    MORAL    LAW    OF    USE 


HY 


FRANK  SEWALL 


NEW    YORK 

G.     P.     PUTNAM'S    SONS 

27    &    29    WEST    23D    STREET 

1881 


THE   NEW   ETHICS 


AN     ESSAY     ON 


THE   MORAL   LAW   OF   USE 


BY 


FRANK  SEWALL 


NEW  YORK 

G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 

37  *  29   WEST  23D   STREET 

1881 


COPYRIGHT  BY 
FRANK  SEWALL 

1881 


Press  of 

G-  P.  Putnam's  Sons 
New   York 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

What  is  man's  moral  nature  ?  Man  defined  as  a  being  of 
will  and  intellect.  The  two  distinguished.  The  error  aris- 
ing from  their  being  confounded.  The  will,  the  subject  of 
moral  education,  ........  5 

CHAPTER   II. 

"What  is  the  moral  sense  ?  ^Esthetics  defined  in  three 
planes.  Ethics  described  as  moral  aesthetics,  .  .  .  n 

CHAPTER    III. 

Analogy  between  physical  and  intellectual  training  and 
moral  training,  .........  16 

CHAPTER    IV. 
An  objective  moral  law.     Does  it  exist  ?     What  is  it  ?        .  20 

CHAPTER   V. 

The  law  of  use,  the  moral  law  of  the  universe.  Illustra- 
tions in  Deity,  in  creation,  in  nature,  in  society,  ...  25 

CHAPTER    VI. 
Distinguished  from  other  ethical  theories,  .         .         .  29 

CHAPTER   VII. 

Necessity  of  inculcating  a  moral  law.  Danger  of  our  pres- 
ent culture 38 

NOTES,       .        .  ......        53 


185376 


«-*!?>* 

OF  THE 

DIVERSITY. 

OF 


THE    NEW    ETHICS. 


THE  obscurity  attaching  to  the  subject  of  CHAPTER 
ethics  as  a  science  and  to  ethical  educa-    object 

of  the 

tion  as  a  practical  achievement,  is  owing,  doubt- 
less, to  the  vagueness  of  the  notions  entertained 
as  to  what  man's  moral  nature  is,  if  indeed 
there  be  any  such  thing,  and  then  as  to  what 
can  be  done  with  it  by  that  process  which 
we  term  educational.  Education  as  applied  to 
the  bodily  or  intellectual  faculties  is  an  intelligi- 
ble term.  Let  us  accept  the  definition  of  it 
which  seems  most  commonly  approved,  that 
it  is,  namely,  the  awakening  and  calling  into 
exercise  of  the  faculties  that  are  in  man  and 
their  adaptation  to  his  surroundings.  What, 
in  the  case  of  ethics,  is  the  moral  faculty,  and 
is  there  a  moral  surrounding  to  which  it  is,  by 


6  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

education,  to  be  harmoniously  fitted  ?  It  is  on 
these  questions  that  the  author  hopes  in  the 
following  pages  to  throw  some  light. 

It  is  not  so  strange  as  might  at  first  appear, 
^nheemSrnaf  that  wm'le  the  physical  training  and  the  intel- 
lectual education  of  man  have  been  for  so  long 
a  time  reduced  to  a  science  and  to  practical 
methods,  the  training  of  the  moral  part  of  our 
being  is  still  a  thing  of  doubt  and  guesses  and 
only  half-admitted  conclusions.  When  we  re- 
flect on  the  nature  of  the  subject  itself  as  being 
distinctly  unintellectual,  as  belonging  rather  to 
the  substantive  than  to  the  formative  part  of 
our  nature,  as  being  a  thing  of  feeling  and  not 
of  definite,  formulated  thought,  we  can  partially 
comprehend  how  it  is  that  while  all  men  feel 
conscious  of  a  moral  nature,  of  moral  impulses 
from  within,  of  moral  influences  from  without, 

Will 

confounded  and    of  moral    ends   to    be   attained,   still  -the 

with 

ect'  moment  we  begin  with  our  definitions  and 
rules  the  matter  itself  slips  mysteriously  from 
our  grasp,  and  we  find  that  we  are  formulating 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  7 

after  all   a   science    of  dialectics,  a   science    of 
thought  and  of  reasoning,  and  not  that  of  the 
will  and  its  nature  at  all.     We  fall  again  into 
the  old  snare  into  which  Socrates  fell  in  declar-  S^"r0arte°sf 
ing  that  virtue  is  a  knowledge,  and  that  know- 
ing the  right  would  be  practically  equivalent  to 
doing  the  right.     The  human  mind  cannot  thus 
legislate  itself  into  virtue  individually,  any  more 
than  it  can  collectively  or  in   the    form   of  the  Aristotle. 
State.    It  would  seem  that  the  first  step  of  es-    intw? 

definition. 

sential  progress  in  the  definitions  of  ethics  is  to 
be  found  in  Aristotle's  distinguishing  between 
the  will  as  the  affectional  part  of  the  human 
mind  and  the  intellect  as  the  instrument  of 
thought.  With  this  grand  dual  division  of  man's 
nature  acknowledged,  and  in  the  light  which  a 
more  recent  and  profound  spiritual  science  has 
thrown  upon  it,  we  are  enabled  to  proceed 
upon  comparatively  solid  and  certain  ground 
in  our  definitions  and  analysis  of  ethics  as  a 

Analysis  oi 

whole.  Man  is  before  us  as  a  being  of  twofold 
nature,  a  being  of  feeling  and  of  thought,  of 


0  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

emotion  and  of  reflection,   of  will  and  of  in- 
tellect. 

Siectd  A  deeper  analysis  still  of  the  human  mind 
reveals  the  substance  or  primary  force  of  the 
human  life  itself  to  be  the  emotions,  the  de- 
sires, the  love  which  resides  in  and  makes  up 
the  will  of  man,  and  that  the  thoughts  and  the 
ideas  which  occupy  the  other  or  intellectual 
half  of  the  mind  are  but  the  forms,  the  con- 
scious representations  of  the  contents  of  the 
will.  Thus  affection  and  thought  are  corre- 
lated like  every  substance  with  its  own  form. 
They  are  one,  and  yet  not  the  same  ;  they  are 
one,  but  distinctly  one  ;  they  can  be  thought  of 
apart,  yet  cannot  exist  apart.  To  illustrate  : 


to  emotions 

of  the  will.  an  emotion  of  the  will  is  doubtless  felt  as  such 
in  the  will,  but  it  has  to  go  to  the  intellect  to 
acquire  a  form,  a  definite  shape  or  determina- 
tion. We  cannot  be  said  to  know  our  desires, 
to  define  them,  much  less  to  carry  them  into 
execution,  until  the  desire  has  clothed  itself 
with  a  judgment  or  a  form  of  thought  from 


Thoughts 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  9 

the  intellect.  Thus,  while  our  emotions  or  feel- 
ings are  shapeless  and  ineffectual  without  the 
idea  and  the  judgment  of  the  intellect  to  serve 
them  as  instruments  of  action,  so  on  the  other 
hand  the  judgment  and  reasoning  of  the  intel 
lect  are  soulless  and  lifeless  when  influenced 
with  no  purpose  or  motive  from  the  will. 
Thoughts  which  are  not  the  clothing  of  the  af- 

substance. 

fections  are  but  ghosts  of  thoughts,  and  if  ut- 
tered or  written,  soon  show  their  emptiness 
and  unreality. 

The  intellect,  therefore,  is  the  depository  of 
those  forms  in  which  as  ideas  or  judgments  the 
will  comes  to  a  knowledge  of  itself,  or  presents 
itself  to  the  intelligence  of  others.  So  inti- 
mate is  the  union  of  the  emotional  and  the  in- 
tellectual parts,  as  before  intimated,  that  philos- 
ophers from  Socrates  down  have  been  con- 
stantly liable  to  the  mistake  of  confounding  the  Eancie°ntshe 
two,  and  treating  of  the  will  or  the  affectional 
part  of  man  as  capable  of  a  kind  of  intellectual 
training,  or  as  subject  to  a  kind  of  intellectual 


10  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

analysis ;  and  this  mistake  has  partly  arisen 
from  the  difficulty  naturally  adhering  to  the 
consideration  of  any  substance  in  itself  or 
apart  from  the  forms  in  which  it  presents  itself 
to  thought  and  reflection. 
Education  The  education  of  the  intellect,  itself  the  form 

ol  the 

ect'  of  the  mind,  and  at  once  the  recipient  of  forms 
in  impressions  of  the  senses  and  the  producer 
of  forms  in  its  own  imagination,  has  been  a 
comparatively  simple  science  from  the  begin- 
ning. Whether  we  guide  the  child's  mind  by 
objective  demonstrations,  or  from  the  contem- 
plation of  one  form  outwardly  presented  to 
that  of  another,  or  conduct  the  maturer  student 
through  the  imaginary  forms  of  the  higher 
mathematics,  or  through  the  subtle  conclusions 
of  logic  as  applied  to  abstract  questions  of  so- 
ciety and  religion  ;  in  either  case  we  have  that 
to  deal  with  the  very  being  of  which  is  law  and 
uniformity,  and  which,  therefore,  is  capable  of 
rapidly  developing  into  a  genuine  science. 
Hence  it  is  that  intellectual  education  has  been 


THE   NEW  ETHICS.  II 

at  all  times  far  in  advance  of  that  of  the  moral 
nature.  Not  only  in  the  classic  but  in  modern  coincident 

with  moral 

nations  we  have  not  unfrequently  been  struck 
by  a  strange  coincidence  of  a  period  of  brilliant 
intellectual  activity  with  that  of  great  moral 
stagnation  and  corruption,  all  of  which  goes  to 
show  that  the  intellect  is  a  comparatively  exter- 

-  r  .  r  ,  i  Intellect 

nal  part   of  man,  near  the   surface,  capable  as  the  external 
well  of  disguising  as  of  truly  revealing  the  real    amanal 
man  within,  and  susceptible   of  a  training  from 
without  by  means  entirely  discordant,  it   may 
be,  to  the  impulses  of  the  will  within. 

IF  we  turn  now  to  the  will  itself,  to  this  man 

a.  i  id.  re  u.L 

of  desire,  of  emotion,  of  pure  feeling,  and  try  to  man- 
contemplate  him,  first,  as  a  subject  of  education, 
and,  secondly,  as  an  agent  striving  to  achieve  an 
end,  or  better  still,  as  the  end,  the  impulse  and 
aim  itself,  which  animates  all  the  intellectual 
and  physical  life  below  itself  ;  here  we  shall  en- 
ter the  real  domain  of  ethics  and  ethical  educa- 
tion. 

We  will  not,  indeed,  try  to  think  of  the  will 


CHAPTER 


12  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

or  feeling  as  entirely  formless,  that  is,  entirely 
independent  of  those  ideal  vessels  or  shapes 
furnished  by  the  intellect,  but  we  will  try  to 
contemplate  pure  feeling  in  itself  as  far  as  possi- 
ble, knowing  that  the  moment  we  define  it  as 
a  feeling  of  something,  a  desire  of  something,  it 
truly  becomes  a  thought  and  thus  an  intellect- 
ual act  as  well  as  a  feeling.  Indeed,  pure  emo- 
tion, or  emotion  in  general,  which  Is  not  a  being 
moved  mentally  from  or  to  some  particular  ob- 
ject, we  may  safely  say  does  not  exist.  Con- 
sciousness does  not  exist  except  as  conscious- 
ness of  some  state,  or  its  modification.  But 
while  this  is  quite  true,  it  is  also  true  that  there 
are  certain  abstractions  of  state  or  of  forms,  or 
we  may  perhaps  better  say  universals  of  states 
of  consciousness,  which  are,  seemingly,  more 
truly  things  of  feeling  than  of  intellect,  and 
universal  these  are  the  sensations  of  pleasure  and  pain,  or, 
andapairn  m  mora-l  terms,  the  judgments  of  the  good  and 
the  bad. 

The  will  or  the  affectional  nature  of  man  does 


THE   NEW  ETHICS.  13 

seem  indeed  capable  of  forming  immediate 
judgments  of  good  and  of  bad,  of  the  pleasant 
and  the  unpleasant,  without  the  intervention  of 
any  conclusions  or  even  idea  of  the  intellect. 
We  may  feel  pleasure  and  feel  pain,  not,  it  is 
true,  to  the  exclusion  from  the  mind  of  some  ob- 
ject of  the  thoughts  at  the  same  time  as  perhaps 
the  occasion  of  the  feeling,  but  still,  as  a  sensa- 
tion or  experience  by  itself,  an  acting  distinctly 
of  the  will  or  of  that  part  of  one  which  feels  and 
does  not  think. 

Now,  this  part  of  man  which   feels   is,  as   I 

.      the  subject 

have  said,  that  which  is  to  be  considered  in  ^J^0™1 
moral  culture.  To  affect  it  for  good  or  bad  is 
to  affect  the  foundation  of  our  intelligent  and 
responsible  life.  Behind  the  man  that  acts, 
that  speaks,  that  reasons,  that  thinks,  that  de- 
sires even,  is  the  man  that  feels,  that  loves. 
The  life  of  man  itself  is  his  love. 

•  11  1  1-11  Ethics  a 

It  will  now  be  apparent  how  admirable  was  branch  of 

aesthetics. 

the  classification  which  Kant  and  other  Ger- 
man psychologists  have  borrowed  from  the 


14  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

Greek  philosophers,  by  which  ethics  was 
treated  of  as  a  department  of  aesthetics.  For 
what  is  aesthetics  but  the  science  of  taste  ? 
Is  it  not  the  science  of  our  faculty  of  perceiv- 
ing pleasure  and  pain  through  the  sensations 
contemplated  in  their  several  grades  ? 
./Esthetics  I.  Thus  in  the  lowest  plane  aesthetics  deals 

on  the 

pianS,Coi  with  the   feelings   as  mere   physical   or  bodily 

sensuous 

taste,  touch  ;  which  grade  of  taste  embraces  the 
aesthetic  judgments  of  all  immediate  sensations 
of  the  body,  not  only  of  taste  so-called,  and 
smell,  and  touch,  as  affording  pleasure  and  pain, 
but  also  the  affection  of  the  eye  in  beautiful 
form  and  color,  or  of  the  ear  in  beautiful 
sounds  or  harmonies. 

IL  On  the  second  or  intellectual  plane  the 
aesthetic  judgments  embrace  the  sensations  of 
the  pleasant  and  the  unpleasant  in  ideas  and 
thoughts  formed  by  the  mind  of  another,  more 
especially  as  subject  to  the  laws  of  intellectual 
beauty  or  harmony  and  completeness. 

III.     In  the  moral  plane  the  aesthetic  judg- 


mental 

taste- 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  15 

ments  embrace  the  sensations  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  or  of  the  good  and  bad  in  those  things 
that  relate  to  conduct,  to  the  motives  of  men,  ethi" 
to  the  loves  that  inspire  them,  the  desires  that 
impel  them,  the  pleasures  that  allure  them,  the 
evils  that  repel  them.  Thus,  elevate  the  sense 
of  touch  or  of  feeling  from  the  body  to  the  in- 
ner man,  the  will  itself  as  the  inmost  of  a  man's 
life  and  conduct,  and  we  have  aesthetics  in  its 
moral  degree,  or  in  that  degree  which  has  been 
more  generally  denominated  that  of  ethics,  or 
the  laws  which  control  our  judgments  of  the 
good  and  the  bad. 

According  to  this  classification,  ethics  is  re- 
ducible to  a  science  of  taste,  nay  of  touch  ;  it 
treats  of  the  will  of  man  as  subject  to  sensa- 
tions of  pleasure  and  of  pain  from  moral  objects 
presented  to  it,  as  capable  of  contact  with  out- 
ward impressions  of  a  moral  nature,  and  as 
being  stimulated  by  these  impressions  to  either 
one  or  another  course  of  conduct.  The  will  of 
man  has  its  finer  sense  of  touch,  by  which  it 


taste. 


1 6  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

comes  in  contact  with  a  universe  about  itself, 
yet  like  unto  itself,  just  as  in  the  lower  plane, 
the  body,  with  its  sensations,  comes  in  contact 
with  a  material  universe  of  agreeable  or  dis- 
agreeable objects. 
The  subject  Such,  then,  is  the  will  and  moral  nature  of 

of  ethical 

education.  man  as  a  sukject  of  education. 
CHn"E*       THE  question  which  next  arises  is,  into  what 
is  the  will  to  be  educated  ?     What  is  the  object 
or  aim  in  moral  or  ethical  education  ? 

In    answering   this    question    we    shall    be 


education:  helped  by  first  observing  the   analogous  cases 

analogy  * 

intellectual  of    physical    and    intellectual    culture.       From 

and 

educS.  these  more  familiar  and  easily  accessible  pro- 
cesses, we  may  conclude  with  greater  certainty 
regarding  the  somewhat  obscure  theme,  the 
education  of  the  moral  nature. 

What,  then,  is  the  aim  of  physical  education  ? 
What  is  a  healthy  development  of  the  body? 
What  was  the  grand  aim  of  the  gymnastics  of 

Ttoebbe°iny  the  Greeks  ?     Was  it  not  an  adaptation  of  the 

harmony 

nSJe.    body  in  all  its  parts,  its  functions  and  motions, 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  I/ 

to  the  law  of  nature  as  bearing  upon  the  phys- 
ical good  of  man  ?  It  was  a  training  of  the 
body  into  a  harmony  with  the  physical  uni- 
verse, into  such  a  harmony  that  the  waves  of 
sound,  and  of  light,  and  of  the  magnetic  aura 
of  the  earth's  atmosphere,  should  be  transmit- 
ted in  beautifully  harmonious  undulations  of 
more  subtle  media  through  all  the  tissues  and 
fibres  of  the  body,  producing  there  exhilaration, 
concord,  joy,  and  recreation.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  will  and  thought  should  find  a  per- 
fect and  ready  and  mighty  instrument  in  the 
body  for  transmitting  its  emotion  and  desires 
in  the  forms  of  effectual  act  and  profitable  la- 
bor in  the  field  of  matter,  so  that,  not  only 
should  the  body  perfectly  reflect  and  respond 
to  objective  nature,  but  also  nature  should  be 
brought  to  perfect  obedience  to  human  force 
and  mind  through  the  exercise  of  the  bodily 
powers. 

To  take  now  the  next  step,  do  we  not  find  in  intellect  to 

be  in 

intellectual  education  the  aim  to  be  an  analo- 


1 8  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

gous  one?  We  have  here  the  mind  of  man, 
considered  intellectually,  to  be  developed  into 
harmony  with  the  universal  laws  of  truth,  so 
that  the  truth  shall  readily  enter  it  and  find  a 
welcome  in  a  quick  perception  ;  so  that  in  cre- 
ating new  images  and  forming  new  conclusions 
in  inductive  reasoning,  the  mind  shall  be  secure 
from  fallacies,  and  reason  in  strict  accordance 
with  the  internal  logos  or  reason  of  the  universe. 
A  trained  intellect  is  not  one  crowded  with 
crude  knowledge,  but  one  capable  of  clear 
analytical  thought,  secure  against  delusions, 
whether  from  sense  or  from  sophistries  or  logi- 
cal snares,  one  that  can  look  through  effects  to 
causes,  and  through  causes  to  ends,  and  thus  see 
the  laws  of  order  upon  which  not  only  the  uni- 
verse is  constructed  and  exists,  but  without 
which  there  could  be  no  determination  of  the 
true  or  false. 

A  trained  intellect  is  one  capable  of  detecting 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  a  thing  as  determined  by 
a  universal  law  appertaining  to  that  thing.  Of 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  1  9 

course  the  existence  of  this  universal  law  is  pre- 
supposed in  every  judgment  of  the  intellect  as 
to  the  true  or  false.  In  other  words,  there  are 
no  particular  truths  if  there  is  no  universal  truth 

or  universally  true  law. 

t 

We    come    now   to   the  moral  plane  of  the  The  object 

of  moral 

mind,  and  from  analogy  may  we  not  assert  that  edtocadapt 
the  object  of  education  is  to  adapt  this  part  of 


education  is 

to  adapt 
man  to  the 


,  .  ,   n  r      i  •  universe. 

man  s  nature  to  the  moral  laws  of  the  universe 
about  him,  and  to  render  man  so  evenly,  sym- 
metrically, and  wholly  developed  a  moral  instru- 
ment, one  so  delicately  tuned,  so  to  speak,  as 
to  its  least  vibrating  fibre,  that  it  shall  respond 
harmoniously  to  the  pulsations  of  the  moral  at- 
mosphere without  ;  that  it  shall  be  susceptible 
of  all  the  finer  and  purer  emotions  of  moral  in- 
fluence, and  be  able  to  send  out  from  itself  again 
strong  vibrating  currents  of  purpose,  feeling, 
and  motion,  which  shall  fall  readily  into  the 
great  moral  currents  without,  and  be  develop- 
ing wider  and  wider  spheres  of  good  and  de- 
light to  eternity  ?  In  other  words,  is  not  every 


20  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

man  morally  as  to  his  emotions  and  desires  the 
centre  of  a  universe  in  which  action  and  reac- 
tion is  forever  going  on  according  to  fixed  laws, 
just  as  he  is,  by  universal  consent,  the  centre  of 
a  similar  physical  and  intellectual  world  ? 
CHAPTER  AT  this  point,  I  am  well  aware,  and  perhaps 


IV. 


Divided    here  first  in  the  progress  of  our  discussion,  opin- 

opinions.  Is  ^ 

ob%ctiv"  i°n  divides,    and  whichever  position  is  taken, 

moral    law       .         -  f  .  . 

universe?  wnether  lor  or  against  an  objective  moral  law, 
and  an  objective  moral  law-giver,  for  one  im- 
plies the  other,  it  will  be  liable  to  dispute  from 
those  holding  opposite  views.  But  it  will  be 
seen,  I  think,  that  no  discussion  of  ethics  as  a 
practical  matter,  least  of  all  as  a  matter  of  edu- 
cation, is  possible  without  one  or  the  other  of 
these  positions  being  definitely  taken.  For  if 
education  is  the  development  of  the  subject 
into  harmony  with  its  environment,  then  in 
moral  education  we  presuppose  a  moral  en- 
vironment, and  to  arrive  at  a  true  notion  of 
what  this  actually  is,  is  probably  the  most  im- 
portant ethical  problem  before  the  world  to-day. 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  21 

Without  endeavoring,  therefore,  to  conceive 
what  the  basis  of  an  ethical  education  might  be 
with  those  who  deny  the  existence  of  any  such 
moral  environment  of  man,  or  objective  moral 
law,  any  universal  distinctions  of  right  and 
wrong,  or  good  and  evil  in  the  universe,  I 
shall  proceed  to  carry  out  our  analogy  in  de-  A  un}versal 
fining  ethical  education  as  a  development  of  Ts°suameT 
the  emotional  nature  of  man  into  harmony  with 
the  universal  laws  of  good  and  evil  in  the 
world  around  him  ;  such  a  development  that 
the  really  good  will  be  felt  by  him  as  good  in 
giving  him  pleasure,  and  the  really  bad  will  be 
felt  by  him  as  bad  in  giving  him  pain.  As  by 
the  well-trained  intellect  a  fallacy  in  an  argu- 
ment or  a  fault  in  a  literary  work  is  felt  as  actu- 
ally harsh  or  grating  to  the  refined  intellectual 
sense,  so  to  the  correctly  trained  moral  nature, 
an  exhibition  of  bad  behavior,  a  suggestion  of 
evil  conduct,  will  produce  a  real  sensation  of 
pain  or  disgust  and  revulsion.  Such  a  relation 
of  man's  moral  sense  to  the  moral  world  about 


22  T-HE  NEW  ETHICS. 

him,  I  hold  to  be  a  true   and    actual  one,  and 
upon  this  as  a  real  substantial  basis  afforded  in 
the  very  nature  of  things,  a  practical  system  of 
ethical  training  is  conceivable. 
education       This  training  presupposes,  as  I  have   already 

implies  two        .  .  _  -  .  .      , 

factors-a  said,  two  factors  :  first,  a  sense  to   be  appealed 

subject  to 

andTiaw1  to  ;    and,  second,  a  law  or  a  standard  which  is 

or  standard 

b3JraiJJc5 to  absolute  and  fixed,  by  which  all  sensations  are 
adjudged  as  harmonious  or  as  discordant  with 
the  moral  order  and  harmony  of  the  universe, 
and  thus  as  really  delightful  or  undelightful  to 
the  moral  sense. 

The  sense  itself  is  the  will  of  man  in  its  sus- 
ceptibility to  moral  emotions,  or  as  capable  of 
being  made  happy  or  sad  by  impressions  from 
moral  objects  ;  thus,  by  exhibitions  of  emotion 
in  others,  by  direct  expressions  of  feeling,  by 
persuasions,  by  threats,  by  sympathy  with  others' 
states  of  feeling,  this  sense  can  be  cultivated 
to  a  finer  and  finer  degree  of  sensibility,  so 
that  nothing  going  on  without  shall  fail  to  con- 
vey its  moral  impress  together  with  the  physl 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  23 

cal  sensation  and  its  intellectual  image.  The 
sense  of  the  good  and  the  bad  will  be  quite  as 
spontaneous  in  its  action  as  the  sense  of  the 
straight  or  crooked,  or  of  the  odd  and  even  num- 
bers, or  of  the  beauty  or  the  ugliness  of  a  figure, 
or  the  truth  or  the  untruth  of  a  proposition. 

Such,  we  conceive,  is  the  sense  which  may  what  is  the 

universal 

be  educated  and  the  capacity  of  its  education. morallaw? 
The  equally  important  inquiry  is  :  What  shall 
we  call  this  universal  law  of  good  and  bad 
which  this  sense  is  to  be  taught  to  know,  and 
by  which  it  is  to  form  its  judgments,  and  con- 
trol its  own  indulgences,  and  determine  its  own 
purposes  and  desires? 

A  sane  man  will  not  spend  time  in  thinking 
out  some  fanciful  theory  for  the  mere  delight  of 
the  thinking,  when  he  learns  that  there  is  a  fal- 
lacy lurking  in  one  of  his  premises. 

So  a  morally  sane  person  will  not  allow  him- 
self to  look  for  pleasure  in  some  emotion  or  desire 
which  he  knows  is  discordant  with  the  laws  of 
universal  good  and  universal  happiness.  Even 


24  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

a  transient  delight  will  be  sacrificed  sooner  than 
to  lose  a  permanent  and  substantial  good,  and 
those  delights  which  will  interfere  with  or  destroy 
the  soul's  capacity  to  unite  itself  with  the  uni- 
versal moral  harmony  will  come  to  be  regarded 
as  not  delights,  but  as  disorderly  emotions,  to  be 
dreaded  and  shunned. 
Laws  are  What,  then,  is  this  universal  lav/  of  good 

forms  of  •«      •         i  •  r         •  r 

8l£dtthei?  W^lcn  prevails  in  the  universe  of  mind,  of  hu- 
s*  man  motive  and  action,  just  as  surely  and  invari- 
ably as  the  laws  of  gravitation  prevail  in  the 
universe  of  matter  ?  And,  since  all  laws  are 
but  forms  of  a  substance,  and  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion but  the  form  in  which  a  force  or  substance 

the^vUlai  °Perates>  wnat>  therefore,  is  the  substance  or 
force  of  good,  which  operates  throughout  the 
universe  of  men's  minds,  causing  happiness  and 
health  in  those  which  are  in  harmony  with  it- 
self, and  misery  and  disease  in  those  who  act 
in  conflict  with  it. 
Arnold™  Matthew  Arnold  has  offered  us  a  definition 

definition— 

Suojf1ytive  of  this  universal  moral  force,  in  what  he  calls  the 


THE   NEW  ETHICS.  2$ 

"  enthusiasm  which  makes  for  righteousness." 
But  this  is  rather  a  subjective  than  an  objective 
element,  something  that  impels  a  man  from  with- 
in rather  than  that  which,  within  and  without, 
controls  the  whole  universe  of  mind  and  matter 
in  such  a  wonderful  harmony  that  by  yielding 
to  it  a  man  finds  himself  at  one  with  the  very  law, 
purpose,  and  end  of  the  Divine  Creator  himself, 
and  accordingly  restored  to  a  state  of  orderly 
relation,  not  with  man  alone,  but  with  the 
physical  universe,  and  with  all  supernatural  and 
spiritual  forms  as  well. 

The  force  and  law  we  have  in  view  is  some-  „, 

1  tie  true 

thing  to  which  man  must  conform  himself  at  objectire 

andsubjective 

the  same  time  that  he  becomes  inwardly  an 
agent  of  it. 

WE  shall  call  this  law  by  a  new  name — not,  in-   c»A™* 
deed,  new  in  every  sense,  but  new  in  the  sense  Theu1s^w  of 
here  intended.     We  shall  call  it  the  law  of  use, 
and  we  will  at  once  distinguish  the  sense  in 
which  we  employ  the  word. 

This  law  of  use,  which  is,  we  may  say,  the 


26 


THE  NEW  ETHICS. 


divine  end  of  the  universe  put  into  effect,  is  the 
law  of  service  ;  but  the  law  of  mutual  service, 

inucrseation. not  tne  service  of  self.  Upon  this  law,we  hold 
the  universe  was  constructed  from  its  first  ema- 
nation in  spheres  of  divine  energy  and  light  and 
heat  out  of  the  Creator  himself  to  the  elementary 
plane  of  nature.  The  same  law  governs  the 
three  realms  of  nature,  mineral,  vegetable,  and 
animal,  in  their  upward  climbing  to  man,  the 
highest  type  of  creation,  and  from  whose  ration- 
al and  voluntary  nature  there  is  the  conscious 
aspiration  and  return  again  to  Deity. 

proceeding  Thus  is  completed  the  divine  and  never-ceas- 
ing  current  of  infinite  love  as  a  first  end  or 
prime  mover,  operating  by  infinite  wisdom,  as 
by  the  spiritual  means  or  instrumental  cause,  to 
the  production  of  infinite  uses  as  effects  in  the 
plane  of  nature  and  of  humanity.  Thus  the 
odivme  very  essential  nature  of  Deity  is  the  giving  of 
itself  for  another,  or  the  creating  of  a  universe 
which  may  be  an  object  of  love  to  a  being 
whose  essence  it  is  to  love  ;  a  universe  not  ere- 


THE   NEW  ETHICS.  2/ 

ated  from  nothing  but  from  the  eternal  substance 
of  Deity  itself,  and  yet  in  such  a  way  that  it 
may  be  ever  distinct  from  Deity,  just  as  every 
action  is  the  effect  of  a  desire  and  thought  and 

T      .  r  i  .      ,  Creation  is 

is   yet  distinct  from  these,  or  as  an  artist  s  crea-  the  giving 

J  of  self  to 

tion  is  from  him  and  of  him  as  to  its  whole  for- 
mative principle  and  being  and  is  yet  not  him- 
self, nor  does  its  distinct  existence  imply  a  pro- 
portional lessening  of  his  own  substance. 

So  God  is  conceived  of  as  himself  existing ^toJSUi 
only  to   serve,   and  in  finding  the   fullest  and 
divinest  satisfaction  in  the  service  of  others  than 
himself.     God  is  the  great  creator  and  never- 
resting  performer  of  uses.     The  whole  universe  ThLh?bItesrse 

everywhere 

is  a  great  work  of  uses,  and  not  the  smallest 
atom  exists  in  its  material  depths,  nor  the 
purest  angel  in  its  celestial  spheres,  which  is 
not  actuated  wholly  by  this  one  universal 
divine  law  of  life,  and  order,  and  happines,  the 
mutual  service  of  things. 

Says  Swedenborg,  in  his  work  on  The  Divine 
Love  and  Wisdom,  No.  327  :  "  All  things  created 


nature. 


28  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

"by  the  Lord  are  uses;  and  they  are  uses  in 
"the  order,  degree,  and  respect  in  which  they 
"have  relation  to  man  and  by  man  to  the  Lord 
"  their  Creator."* 

Tof usei"s  There  is  a  conatus,  a  struggling  and  yearning 
of  Nature  from  her  inmost  and  subtlest  particles 
to  be  of  use  to  something  above  herself.  The 
sun's  heat  and  light,  combining  with  the  ele- 
ments of  the  soil,  strive  to  help  the  seed  to  ger- 
minate ;  the  plants  crowd  and  push  in  the  dark 
ground  until  they  can  shoot  joyfully  upward, 
and  offer  their  whole  being  as  nourishment, 
protection,  or  refreshment  to  either  the  bodily 
or  affectional  life  of  the  animal  kingdom.  The 
lower  animals  serve  the  higher ;  all  the  lower 
kingdoms  serve  man,  and  man  serves  God  in  a 
true  sense  only  by  serving  his  fellow-man. 
This  sublime  law  of  use,  which,  like  all  things  of 
divine  completeness  and  majesty,  is  at  once  a 
type  of  simplicity  and  humility,  found  indeed  its 
highest  embodiment  in  Him  who  proved  His 
own  Divinity  among  men,  not  by  receiving  the 

*  See  Note  I. 


THE   NEW  ETHICS.  2Q 

homage  of  inferior  creatures,  but  by  doing  the 
works  of  God,  and  who,  as  if  to  write  forever  in    Godthe 
the  mind  of  humanity  the  noblest  of  all  legends  of  perfect 

service. 

as  betokening  the  true  knight-errantry  to  which 
all  mankind  is  by  nature  called  and  consecrated, 
uttered  once,  in  the  hearing  of  men,  these 
words  :  "  I  am  among  you  as  one  that  serves." 

THIS  law  of  use,  or  mutual  service,  which  I    CHAPTER  VI- 

The  law  of 

have  called  the  moral  law  of  the  universe,  is  distinguished-. 
readily  distinguished  from  those  other  motives 
which  have  been  made  fundamental  in  the  vari- 
ous ethical  and  religious  systems  of  past  times. 

I.  From  the 

It  is  essentially  different  from  the  theory  which 


declares  the  end  of  life  and  man's  existence  to       °^>0 

as  the  end 

be  the  glory  of  God  in  the  sense  of  the  selfish 
delight  of  an  arbitrary  and  powerful  ruler  in  ex- 
periencing the  abject  subjugation  and  servitude 
of  inferior  creatures.  The  end  of  man  is,  in- 
deed, the  glory  of  God,  but  God's  glory  has  no 
higher  or  nobler  manifestation  than  in  the  uses,X7 

What  is  the 

of  the  universe  in  the  mutual  service  of  creature  true0flory 

God  and  the 

to  creature.     It  is  in  the  interchange  of  humanofki£fadv°™? 


30  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

ii>rhe    uses  that  men  find  at  once  the  highest  humanity 
klheivSio£and  most  intense  happiness.    "The  kingdom  of 

a  kingdom 

of  u^.1'  "heaven,  says  Swedenborg  again,  "is  a  king- 
"dom  of  uses,"  and  no  man  shall  become  the 
happy  subject  of  this  kingdom  who  has  not  be- 
come that  which  he  was  born  to  become,  a  form 
or  an  agency  of  use.  To  serve,  not  to  be  served, 
is  the  highest  end  of  man  ;  and  the  greatest 
man  is  the  man  who  in  his  gifts  and  actions, 
whether  intellectual  or  moral,  is  the  means  of 
the  greatest  amount  of  use  to  his  fellow-men. 
Distin  "ished  Compared  again  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
Utilitarians,*  or  of  those  who  would  make  self- 


Utilitarian 

the  p?etist.  interest,  even  to  self-love,  the  foundation  of  all 
moral  and  social  stability,  and  reduce  the  useful 
to  only  that  which  is  useful  to  self  more  or  less 
directly,  the  law  of  use  which  we  are  assert- 
ing, is  seen  to  be  quite  different.  This  makes 
service  always  the  neighbor  and  not  self  the  object 

not  of  self  J 

of  others,  of  the  endeavor  or  the  service,  and  regards 
one's  own  advantage,  or  wealth,  health,  power, 
and  faculties,  as  only  greater  means  to  the 

*See  Note  II. 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  31 

real  end  in  view,  the  good  to  be  accomplished 
for  others.  This  use,  or  "  the  good,"  becomes 
neither  the  dead  and  inert  matter  of  mere  phys- 
ical gratification  or  bodily  well-being  on  the 
one  hand,  as  with  the  more  materialistic  Utili- 
tarian, nor,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mere  abstract 
goodness  of  the  pietist  or  the  theist,  to  whom 
God  is  a  being  so  entirely  without  body,  parts, 
and  passions,  as  to  be  essentially  nothing.  It 
is,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  concrete  and  in- 
telligible thing  of  every-day  experience.  Good 
is  nothing  except  the  putting  into  effect  of  a 
desire  of  use,  and  cannot  exist  abstracted  from 
a  personal  will  and  intelligence.  God  is  good 
because  He  is  the  creator  and  eternal  doer  of 
useful  things.  All  good  works  are  uses,  and  all 
uses  done  for  another  than  a  merely  selfish  end 
are  genuinely,  nay,  divinely  good.  In  this  most 
true  sense,  God,  indeed,  contemplates  still  in 
the  process  of  the  never-ending  days  of  crea- 
tion, the  result  of  each  day's  work  which  He 
has  made,  and  behold  it  is  very  good. 


3  2  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

The    phrase    "  to    do   good,"     and    "  to    be 

"  Doing 

g°pbeinagd  "good,"  is  lifted  from  the  drear  inanity  of  aimless 

good." 

sentiment  into  the  noble  plane  of  action.  Good- 
ness, as  held  up  to  a  child's  mind  as  a  motive 
of  life,  means  no  longer  a  mere  feeble  yielding 
to  another's  violence  and  dying  at  an  early  age. 
It  means  the  being  and  doing  of  service  to  one's 
fellow-being.  It  is  most  true  that  in  this  sense 

Nature     a  ^aw  °^  g°°d  pervades  all  inanimate   nature. 

oesbut°d   Not  a  mineral  or  plant  but  what  obeys  it,  and 

instinctively, 

ratSSaiiy  obeys  it  in  the  sense  of  its  being  the  operation 

nor 

morally.  of  personal  will  and  intelligence  ;  but  in  this 
case,  that  which  we  call  inanimate,  is  only  so  in 
being  more  absolutely  animated  from  God  only, 
than  is  the  case  with  the  free  moral  animation 
of  man.  The  question  which  is  often  asked,  of 
The  uses  of  what  use  is  all  the  loveliness  and  elegance  of 

nature  not 

S!  form  and  color  lavished  upon  flower  and  plumage, 
and  tinting  even  the  evanescent  clouds,  may  be 
answered  best  in  the  simple  words  :  the  use  of 
giving  delight  to  the  affections  of  living  crea- 
tures, and  of  making  man  a  fuller  recipient  of 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  33 

the  love  of  his  Maker,  and  thus  the  more  grate- 
ful dispenser  of  it  to  others.  God  ministers 
through  the  useful  contrivances  of  nature  not 
to  man's  stomach  alone,  but  to  his  affections 
and  his  thoughts ;  and  all  the  glories  of  creation 
are  provided  to  be  of  use  to  that  life  of  man's 
will  and  love  which  is  more  than  meat,  and  that 
body  of  his  immortal  reason  and  thought  which 
is  more  than  raiment. 

Finally,  as  compared  with  the  ethics  of  Plato, 
this  law  of  use  is  far  more  a  doing  than  a 
knowing  ;  as  compared  with  the  Stoic's  virtue  iv. 

From  the 

of  duty  and  a  passionless  indifference  to  pleas-    stoics- 
ure  or  pain,  it  indeed  has  a  pleasure  in  view, 
but  a  pleasure  that  is  experienced  only  in  re- 
garding the  good  of  others  as  first  end,  and  is 
lost  when  this  order  is  inverted  and  the  good 
of   others  is  made  subservient    to  one's  own 
pleasure.     As  compared  with  the  ascetic  vir-  From  the 
tues  of  the  monastic  orders,    whether  of  the 
Christian  or  of  other  religions,  the  law  of  use 
subordinates  all  rules,  all  practices,  whether  of 


34  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

prayer  or  work,  whether  fasting  and  morti- 
fication, or  bodily  and  mental  recreation  by 
means  of  healthy  sports,  games,  and  feastings, 
to  the  one  most  catholic,  general,  benefi- 
cent, and  divine  rule  : — "  That  is  good  which  is 
That  is  "  in  the  order  of  the  uses  of  God's  universe; 

good  which 

serves.  t(  ^^  jg  gOO(j  which  helps  man  in  his  own  sta- 
"  tion  to  be  a  larger,  stronger,  and  more  perfect 
"  agent  of  good,  whether  spiritual  or  rational  or 
"  physical,  to  his  fellow-creatures.  He  best 
"serves  God  who  serves  his  fellow- man." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  longer  in  defin- 
ing use  as  the  universal  ethics  of  creation  ;  it 
will  be  proper  here  to  add,  in  conclusion,  a  few 
reflections  on  the  ethical  education  as  based 
upon  the  recognition  of  this  law  ;  and  first  as 

Moral  .  , 

culture  to  to  the  distinction  necessary  to  observe  between 
distinguished  momland  intellectual  culture.  There  can  be 
no  ethics,  properly  speaking,  without  dialectics, 
any  more  than  there  can  be  an  affection  as  a 
subject  of  reflection  without  the  thought  in 
which  that  affection  forms  itself  in  the  Intel- 


from 
intellectual. 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  35 

lect.  Moral  culture  without  some  intellectual 
culture  is  impossible.  The  very  form  of  good 
is  the  right ;  and  the  right  is  the  intellectual 
apprehension  of  the  good.  The  good  is  the  of/** 
substance  of  the  law  ;  the  right  is  the  form 
which  the  law  gives  it.  The  will  by  its  higher 
aesthetics  is  aware  of  the  distinction  between 
the  good  and  the  evil  as  truly  as  the  body  feels 
its  sensations  of  pleasure  and  pain.  But  man 
cannot  act  morally  except  he  acts  in  freedom 
and  from  reason.  It  is  by  intelligent  or  self- 
conscious  reason  that  man  approves  or  disap- 
proves of  acts,  and  so  makes  himself  morally 
responsible  for  them.  A  brute  would  be  vir- 

How  man 

tuous  if  its  orderly  instinctive  life,  instead  of 
being  guided  immediately  by  a  divine  intel- 
ligence, were  guided  by  the  conclusions  of  its 
own  reason  and  the  determinations  of  its  own 
free  choice.  Man  is  thus  guided,  and  is  there- 
fore a  responsible  moral  agent.  But  while 
thus  the  intellect  is  so  necessary  to  the  moral 
agency  of  the  will,  and  a  man  must  know  what 


The  love 


36  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

the  right  is  before  he  can  do  what  is  good  in 
preference  to  what  is  bad,  we  must  be  careful 
not  to  reverse  the  case,  and  hold  that  the  mere 
intellectual  power  of  distinguishing  the  right 
from  the  wrong  is  itself  moral  culture.  The 
affection,  the  desire,  the  sense  of  use  and  its 
L Sleds6  love  must  itself  be  cultivated  by  example, 

culture— 

thought   stimulus,   and  exercise,  and  from   the  earliest 
beginning  of  mental  impressions. 

The  power    of  such  a  moral  aim  we  have 
ofCmondr  seen  illustrated  in  the  patriotism  of  the  Spartan 

culture 

illustrated.  s^-ate  especially,  narrow  and  imperfect  as  was 
its  conception  of  the  law  of  human  use.  The 
Spartan  lived  for  an  end,  the  power  of  the 
state  over  the  subject,  and  the  military  pre- 
dominance of  Sparta  over  the  neighboring 
tribes  and  states.  The  mothers  taught  this, 
the  schools  reechoed  it,  the  state  exhibited  it ; 
life  was  comparatively  of  little  worth  so  far  as 
it  did  not  contribute  to  this  common  end.  A 
similar,  but  spasmodic  and  temporary  enthusi- 
asm has  seized  other  nations  at  other  times,  as 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  37 

that  of  the  Crusades  and  Knight-errantry  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  that  of  the  great  national 
uprisings  of  England,  France,  and  our  own 
country  for  the  attainment  of  popular  rights 
or  the  preserving  of  national  integrity.  These 
motives  are  not  things  of  intellectual  culture  ; 
they  come  from  a  contact  of  wills,  from  great 
currents  of  feeling,  permeating  the  minds  of 
society  and  stirring  up  the  depths  of  emotion 
or  the  sources  of  action. 

But  how  poor  and  insufficient  is  the  moral 
impulse  and  education  which  animated 

mo  i*cils. 

in  her  noblest  days,  because  founded  on  a  mis- 
taken law,  is  abundantly  shown  in  the  career  of 
her  greatest  generals,  men  like  Themistocles 
and  Pausanias,  who  made  the  glory  of  their 
states  only  the  bridge  of  their  own  personal 
ambition,  and  who  died  in  disgrace  as  traitors 
to  the  powers  their  valor  had  served.  The 
same  ruinous  principle  of  self-love  as  underly- 
ing public  service  is  equally  exhibited  in  the 
careers  of  Cicero  and  Cato  of  Rome,  and,  among 


38  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

modern  leaders,  in  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  How- 
ever great  the  literary  and  military  legacy  of 
these  men,  how  poor  is  their  contribution  to  the 
moral  forces  of  society  as  compared  with  that  of 
the  humblest  Christian  martyr  of  whatever  sect 
or  clime,  who, for  the  love  of  God  and  his  fellow- 
men,  has  held  dearer  than  life  his  adherence  to 
the  truth  as  the  revealed  law  of  the  eternal 
goodness !  Compare,  too,  on  a  still  larger  scale, 
the  periods  of  the  greatest  intellectual  with  that 
of  the  greatest  moral  eminence  of  nations. 
How  often  do  we  find  the  golden  age  of  letters, 
as  that  of  Greece,  of  Rome,  or  of  our  own  Eng- 
land, to  be  the  age  of  a  more  than  ordinarily 
corrupt  and  dissolute  social  and  public  life. 
CHAPTER  PERHAPS  there  is  no  greater  danger  threat - 
dSger  cning  the  educational  progress  of  our  own  time 
hreoSning  and  our  own  land  than  this  over-estimate  of 

educational 

progress.  mere  mteuectual  culture  and  the  confounding 
of  it  with  moral  progress.  If  history  teaches  us 
anything  like  a  general  law,  it  is  that  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  head  and  of  the  heart  do  not  necessa- 


THE   NEW  ETHICS.  39 

rily  go  together,  and  that  of  the  two  a  sound  moral 
training  of  a  people  is  of  greater  importance  to 
real  human  happiness  and  welfare  than  brilliant 
intellectual  culture.  The  great  argument  held 
out  nowadays  for  the  promotion  of  education, 
and  especially  of  free  schools,  is  that  intelligence  ourDp°r|ssent 

i  •  T       i   •     i         i  i         free-  school 

prevents  or  reduces  crime.  1  think  that  be-  d^f^h 
fore  long  the  American  people  will  begin  to 
question  this  statement,  or,  at  least,  to  ask 
whether  or  not  it  must  be  modified  to  include  a 
restrictive  phrase  that  moral  and  not  alone  in- 
tellectual culture  is  necessary  to  protect  society 
from  crime.  If  statistics  are  appealed  to,  while 
it  may  appear  that  the  universal  stimulus  given 
to  the  intellect  of  our  young  men  and  women  intene°cetsuai 

culture 

has  tended  in  our  more  advanced  communities 


i  i          •  r  1  conceal 

to  the  reduction  ol  the  grosser  and  more  out-  vice? 
wardly  offensive  forms  of  vice  and  immorality, 
it  is  not  so  evident  that  at  the  heart  of  society,  at 
its  very  core  and  kernel  in  the  secret  plane  of 
the  moral  consciousness  where  dwells  all  that 
is  most  sacred  and  pure  and  noble  in  humanity, 


40  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

there  is  not  growing  a  sore  of  immorality  which 
will  sooner  or  later  make  a  whited  sep- 
ulchre of  all  this  mere  outside  polish  of  mind. 

Indeed,  it  may  be  a  question  whether  the 
effect  of  mere  increased  intelligence,  without 
accompanying  moral  principle,  may  not  be 
either  to  invent  new  forms  of  dishonesty  and  vi- 
cious practice,  or  to  cover  up  and  ingeniously 
shield  from  penalty  those  crimes  which  with  the 
more  ignorant  are  not  more  prevalent,  but  are 
only  not  so  cunningly  and  successfully  con- 
cealed. I  think  that  at  least  a  large  proportion 
of  the  excess  of  criminality  attaching  to  the  un- 
educated classes  in  statistical  reports  may  be  at- 
tributed, not  to  a  real  excess  of  crime,  but  to  a 
lack  of  intelligent  concealment ;  but  even  read- 
ing the  figures  as  they  are,  the  moral  elevation 
produced  by  intellectual  culture  is  by  no  means 

Statistics 

America  everywhere  apparent. 
Massachusetts      From  the  last  census  of  the  United  States,  it 

especially 

0  hfghe  a  would,  indeed,  appear  that  for  one  crime  com- 

percentage 

°pfopuiactfond  mitted  by  an   educated  person   there    are  ten 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  4* 

committed  (and  detected)  by  an  illiterate  per- 
son. In  France,  from  1867  to  1869,  one  half 
of  the  inhabitants  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
and  this  one  half,  or  the  illiterate  half  of  the 
population,  furnishes  eighty-seven  per  cent,  of  united 
the  detected  and  convicted  criminals  ;  and  in  M!L™ancCheusetts. 
Massachusetts,  where  only  seven  in  a  hundred 
cannot  read  and  write,  eighty  per  cent,  of  the 
crimes  committed  (and  detected)  are  committed 
by  this  small  minority.  This  would  appear  cer- 
tainly, at  first  glance,  abundantly  to  vindicate  the 
claim  of  education  as  being  the  effectual  pre- 
ventive of  crime. 

But  how  far  these  figures  indicate  the  moral 
influence  of  education  itself,  in  not  merely  con- 
cealing but  actually  reducing  the  immoral  ten- 
dencies of  society,  may  be  more  accurately  de- 
termined if  we  bear  in  mind  a  significant  reve- 
lation from  the  report  of  the  Board  of  State 
Charities  of  Massachusetts  for  the  year  1875. 

"  In  1 865,  the  whole  number  of  persons  in 
"  all  our  prisons  during  the  year  did  not  much 


42  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

BUt      "  exceed  10,000,  and  of  these  only  481  were  in 

Massachusetts 

marked    "  tne  State  Prison.     In  1875,  the  whole  number 
immorality.  "  has  exceeded  20,000,  and  the  whole  number  in 
"  the  State  Prison  has  been  852. 

"Thus  we  see  that  detected  crimes  and  misde- 
"  meanors  have  doubled  since  the  close  of  the 
"  civil  war  ;  while  undetected  and  unpunished 
"  crimes  have  increased  at  least  as  fast,  and  now 
"  we  find  that  there  is  hardly  a  State  in  the  Union 
"  or  a  country  in  the  civilized  world  where  atro- 
"  cious  and  flagrant  crime  is  so  common  as  in 
"  Massachusetts. 

in  ten         "  With  an  increase  of  23   per  cent,  in  popu- 

years  :  . 

increase  tt  \^{on^  fa^  pnSOn  returns  show  an  increase  of 

population 

' 


percent  i       While  we  need  not  become  fanatical  on  the 


The  reform  subject  of  the  "  Bible  in  schools,"  at  least  until 

that  is 

needed.  tjle  sacrecl  volume  is  more  universally  read  and 
pondered  at  home,  nor  on  that  of  "  God  in  the 
"  Constitution,"  while  God  in  the  private  and 
daily  affairs  of  the  citizen  is  so  frequently  and 
unscrupulously  ignored  ;  still  the  practical  and 

*See  Note  III. 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  43 

urgent  need  must  sooner  or  later  appear  of  a 
definite  moral  training  for  the  youth  of  our  na- 
tion, based  upon  something  more  than  a  whim- 
sical patching  up  by  the  politic  school- 
master of  maxims  here  and  there,  now  of 
"  honesty  as  the  best  policy,"  now  of  "  all  for 
"  number  one,"  now  of  "  might  makes  right,"  or 
the  survival  of  the  fittest,  now  of  "  evil  as  un- 
"  developed  good,"  now  of  the  "  wickedness  of 
"  the  world  and  the  flesh,"  and  now  of  "  all  for 
"  the  greater  glory  of  God." 

Has   not  the  world  been  searching-  for  this  Need  of  a 

definite 


law  that  shall  be  to  man's  moral  nature  what 

discipline. 

the  laws  of  thought  are  to  his  intellectual  na- 
ture, —  a  law  which  shall  determine  absolutely 
the  good  and  the  evil,  and  tell  him  what  to 
shun  and  what  to  exercise  in  training  him- 
self into  harmony  with  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse ?  And  if  it  has  been  reserved  for  this 
new  age  in  which  we  live  to  arrive  at  this 
principle  of  use  or  mutual  services  as  the  pri- 
mary law  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  all  or- 


44  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

derly  society  among  men,  while  we  may  miss 
the  majestic  outline  of  some  vision  of  our  fancy 
in  this  plain  and  realistic  principle,  may  we  not 
be  thankful  that  we  have  so  simple  and  practi- 
cal an  ethics  as  this  to  teach  and  impress  upon 
the  youth  of  our  age  and  to  subject  to  the  test 
of  experience  ?  Use  is  the  end  itself  to  which 
other  motives,  those  of  duty  or  self-control  or 
self-abnegation,  yea,  even  the  sacred  exercises 
of  piety  and  religion,  regarded  as  outward  ordi- 
nances and  rites,  all  serve  as  means.  The  goal 
is  here  at  last  reached  and  all  the  moral  philos- 
ophy of  the  centuries  finds  its  solution  in  this 

The 

very  simple  and  homely  commonplace,  that  to 


of  use  :    its 

character.  ^e  g°°d  and  to  do  good  is  to  be  useful. 

^  Is  it  objected  that  in  making-  this  the  motive 

Objections  J 

ed<  of  life,  religion   is   ignored  ?     I   would  protest 

rather  that  rightly  understood  this  is  the  sum 

of     religion,    in     that,    to     quote    again    the 

wedenborg's  language  of  Swedenborg,  —  "All    religion   has 

definition  of  -  ,.. 

religion.    «  relation  to  life,  and  the  lite   of  religion  is  to 
"  do  good." 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  45 

And  if  it  be  objected,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
all  distinctions  between  religion  and  morality 
are  henceforth  blotted  out,  I  would  say  that 
the  world  is  so  much  the  better  off  in  being 
disabused  of  the  delusion  that  morality,  in  the 
sense  of  doing  right  from  purely  selfish  motives 
rather  than  from  the  principle  of  obedience  to  a 

•*•  A  Morals  and 

Divine  law  of  right  and  wrong,  can  confirm  the  runSd! 
good,  or  abolish  the  evil  of  the  world  ;  for  no 
more  than  the  devil  can  cast  out  devils,  can  the 
principle  of  self-love,  impelled  by  its  own  motive 
only,  cast  out  or  mitigate  in  any  degree  the 
evils  which  it  has  brought  into  the  world. 

Not  mere  self-abnegation   for  its  own  sake, , 

'  Use  the  law 

not  the  crushing  out  of  instinct,  and  the  morti-  °  Pserif-na 

discipline. 

fying  of  our  natural  faculties,  but  the  subordina- 
tion of  the  whole  man  to  this  one  holy  principle 
of  use, — this  will  harmonize  our  life,  and  bring 
health,  beauty,  and  joy  again  into  the  world  in 
the  very  name  of  those  once  dreaded  powers — 
morality  and  religion.  Let  our  children  be 
taught  this  principle  from  their  earliest  age  ; 


46  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

let  parents  inculcate  it,  schools  teach  it,  and 
society  exemplify  it,  and  how  much  of  our 
aimless,  distracted  moralizing  and  even  legis- 
lating will  soon  vanish  among  the  discarded 
errors  of  the  past.  Let  it  with  children  be  made 
children  to  a  thing  of  absolute  requirement,  that  they  be 

be  trained  1-1 

trained  to  be  useful  ;    let  the  idea  of  service 


enter  into  every  relation  possible,  at  home,  at 
school,  and  in  the  state.  Let  the  much-abused 
term,  "  the  dignity  of  labor,"  which  is  rapidly 
undergoing  an  evolution  into  the  right  of  the 
laboring  classes  to  be  supported  without  labor, 
—let  this  give  way  to  the  sacredness  of  service  ', 
a  sacredness  derived  from  no  lower  source  than 
the  Divine  Man  Himself,  who  came  to  men 
"  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister." 

And  here  I  must  say  a  word  further  in  the 
definition  of  use,  lest  I  should  be  so  unfortunate 
lhty"  as  to  seem  to  inculcate  a  mere  utility,  or  service 
of  bodily  and  worldly  interests,  and  to  ignore 
the  culture  and  exercise  of  the  finer  and  higher 
faculties  of  our  nature.  While  it  is  true  that 


mere 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  47 

no  sense  or  taste  exists  in  human  nature  so 
highly  refined  as  not  to  have  some  practical 
use  as  its  end,  whether  it  be  in  the  fine  arts,  in 
literature,  in  religion,  in  the  love  of  nature,  or 
of  philosophy,  it  is  equally  true  that  the  uses 
which  our  faculties  subserve,  are  of  various 

i  T>I  rr  i  i    T     i          i    Variety  and 

grades.  Ihere  are  affections  to  be  delighted, 
and  thoughts  to  be  inspired,  and  impulses  to 
be  stirred  and  strengthened,  as  well  as  bodies 
to  be  clothed  and  fed  in  the  world  ;  and  how 
large  a  part  of  the  substantial  good  of  human 
life  comes  from  these  higher  fields  of  service, 
where  the  poet,  the  musician,  the  painter,  the 
skilful  designer  and  decorator  of  our  every- 
day utensils,  the  architect,  the  orator,  the  his- 
torian, and  the  philosopher,  have  cast  in  their 
noble  intellectual  earnings  into  the  wealth  of 
the  ages  !  Who  shall  calculate  the  stores  of 
delight  contributed  to  humanity  through  end- 
less generations  by  a  single  beautiful  creation 
of  genius,  by  a  single  noble,  helpful  act  of  gen- 
uine charity,  however  humble  and  unpretend- 


48  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

ing.     Men  live  from  delights,  either   good    or 
The  ufe  of  bad,  and  to  contribute  to  the  good  delights  in 

man  to  be 

served,  those  planes  of-  life  which  are  higher  than  the 
body,  this  is  as  truly  of  practical  use  to  the 
world  as  the  clearing  of  forests,  the  plowing  of 
fields,  and  the  weaving  of  fabrics. 

So,  too,  the  uses  of  life  multiply  almost  infi- 
nitely when  their  complex  and  more  general 
forms  are  subject  to  the  analysis  of  a  true  spirit- 

.Mana    Ual  physiology.    Man  is  a  little  world  in  himself, 

microcosm.  f     J  t>J 

and  the  human  body  is  a  picture  in  miniature, 
not  only  of  all  the  universe  of  mind  within,  but 
of  the  universe  of  matter  without,  and  not  a 
muscle  or  vein  or  cell  or  fibre  in  the  human 
body  but  corresponds  in  a  mysterious  and  a 
wonderful  manner  to  some  organ  or  faculty  of 
the  mind  ;  so  that  the  study  of  the  mutual  re- 
uusmanf  ^at^on  °^  a^  these  minute  particles  and  forms  of 
the  human  body,  in  the  uses  of  the  animal 
economy,  will  enable  us  to  judge  by  analogy  of 
the  intricate  and  beautiful  system  in  which 
every  emotion  and  intellectual  activity  of  the 


uman 


THE  NEW  ETHICS,  49 

human  mind  may  play  its  part  in  the  kingdom 
of  social  uses  or  in  the  collective  man. 

Let  men  cultivate,  then,  a  conscience  of  use  ;      The 

consciencs 

so  that  the  strong  and  healthy  current  of  social    ofl" 
life  shall  be  a  steady  sphere  of  happy  labor,— 
the  doing,  the  achieving  of  something,  and  not 
the  idle  and  selfish  consumption  of  the  earnings 
of  others.*     Let  happiness  be  sought  in  useful 
work,  be  it  manual  or  mental,  in  the  use  adapted 
to  each,  in  his  proper  sphere  or  station.     Let 
the  evils  of  mere  intellectual  culture,  so  often  industrial 

.  .  training. 

stimulating  to  pride  and  mischievous  cunning, 
be  made  to  give  way,  in  proper  measure,  to  in- 
dustrial and  artistic  training,  so  that  children  may 
learn  at  an  early  age  the  heavenly  delight  that 
flows  in  only  to  the  mind  of  him  who  works 
unselfishly  to  add  something  to  the  treasure,  the 
good,  the  happiness  of  the  world ;  and  let  vices 
be  judged  as  vices,  because  they  destroy  useful-  t^£at|^ 
ness,  because  they  violate  the  Divine  command :  huuse!to 
"To  love  God  with  all  our  strength,  and  our 
"  neighbor  as  our  self." 

*  See  Note  IV. 


50  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

Will  there  be  any  difficulty  in  inculcating  a 
catholicity  moral,  nay,  a  religious  system,  such  as  this,  in 

of  this 

doctrine,  ^he  schools  even  of  our  free  and  tolerant  repub- 
lic ?  Where  is  the  sect  or  the  party  that  can 
raise  a  whisper  of  reproach  against  this  holy 
gospel  of  use,  of  mutual  service  of  man  to  man, 
as  the  very  will  and  law  of  God  ? 

We  live  in  a  strange  age,  an  age  of  contra- 

An0°f?hees  dictions,   indeed  ;    an   age   which   presents  the 

time,  in   unprecedented  spectacle  of  municipal  and  State 

morals  and          * 

lon'  legislatures,  on  the  same  page  of  the  statute- 
book,  forbidding  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  schools, 
an<^  enacting  laws  for  keeping  holy  the  Sab- 
bath  ;  an  age  which  thinks  by  legislation  not 
only  to  restrain  man  from  crime  by  punishment, 
but  by  prohibition  of  outward  indulgence  to 
make  him  inwardly  virtuous.  Is  there  not  here 
a  confusion  of  police  and  educators  ?  If,  indeed, 
the  temptation  to  vice  comes  only  from  without, 
t^ien  may  a  heavenly  state  of  society  be  within 


s 

, 

but  if,  on  the  contrary,  the  temptations  to  vice 


man  needs  the  possibilities  of  any  legislature  of  reformers  ; 

reforming, 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  51 

come  not  from  without,  but  from  within,  if  the 
man,  and  not  his  surroundings,  need  reforming, 
must  we  not  begin  in  giving  man  a  moral  police 
within,  a  guardian  stronger,  more  watchful,  and 
more  effectual  than  any  outward  agencies  our 
legislatures  can  operate  ? 

And  is  this  inward  police  any  thing  else  than 
conscience,  and  without  this  what  is  any  reform, 

Inefficiency 

any  prohibition  of  vice,  but  a  mere  whitening  of  legislation 

in  moral 

the  surface  of  that  which  remains  foul  and  cor-  reforms, 
nipt  within,  ready  always  to  pour  forth  again 
when  the  restraint  is  removed  ?  And  where 
shall  we  begin  in  cultivating  and  educating  this 
best  guardian  of  society,  the  human  con- 
science ?  I  answer  in  that  which  is  the  begin- 
ning and  ending  of  ethical  and  religious  culture, 
for,  so  far  as  either  is  genuine  and  not  a  sham, 
they  both  constitute  a  one, — in  this  teaching 
our  youth  to  know  the  law  of  mutual  service  as 
the  Divinely  imposed  law  of  the  highest  happi- 
ness and  highest  good  of  man,  to  reverence  it 
as  the  very  soul  of  Divinity,  to  love  it,  to  live 
by  it. 


52  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

How  this  principle  is  to  be  inculcated,  I  do 
not  regard  it  as  necessary  to  discuss  in  further 
detail  here.  A  useful  life  is  the  standard,  the 

The  work  .  .        .  ...... 

of  ethical  aim,  the  pattern ;  the  human  will,  with  its  emo- 

education.  r 

tions  and  desires,  its  likes  and  dislikes,  is  the 
subject  to  be  trained  to  conformity  with  this 
standard,  to  attain  to  this  good  as  an  end ;  the 
means  is  in  the  knowledge  of  the  right  or  the 
lawful  as  the  useful,  and  of  the  wrong  and  un- 
lawful as  that  which  injures  or  destroys  use  ; 
and  the  implanting  of  this  knowledge  in  the 
mind  and,  by  constant  exercise,  in  the  affections 
of  youth,  and  thus  making  it  the  law  of  life,  is 
the  work  of  the  ethical  educator. 

Let  those  who  undertake  this  education  re- 

pSfcVnJt  member,  however,  that  the  end  is  a  moral,  that 

n>  is,  an  affectional,  and  not  an  intellectual  one  ; 

that  it  is  a  practice  and  not  an  opinion  that  is 

to  be  inculcated  ;  and  that  while  legislatures  and 

The  force 

t0abmoursaeid  governments  may  outwardly  compel,  educators 

one:  which  T      •        1  •          i          11  •  1   • 

leads  but  never  may.    It  is  the  swine-herd  who  drives  his 

does  not  * 

compel'    flock  ;  the  shepherd  leads  his. 


NOTES. 


NOTE  I. 

THE  author,  while  treating  of  his  subject  in  a  new  form, 
desires  to  lay  no  claim  to  originality  in  the  principles  here 
presented,  but  rather  to  refer  his  readers  to  the  more  full 
elucidation  of  them  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of 
Emanuel  Swedenborg,  especially  in  a  posthumous  work 
of  this  remarkable  writer,  entitled  De  Divino  Amore,  being 
a  treatise  attached  to  a  larger  work,  Apocalypsis  Explicata. 
To  indicate  the  comprehensiveness  of  this  doctrine  of  use 
as  a  Divinely  established  basis  of  ethics,  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  quote  here  the  chapter  headings  of  this  treatise, 
which  are  in  substance  as  follows  : 

That  life,  which  is  the  Divine  Love,  is  in  a  form. 

That  that  form  is  a  form  of  use. 

That  man,  both  in  particular  and  in  general,  is  in  such  a 
form. 

That  heaven  is  in  such  a  form. 

That  all  things  of  the  world  also  tend  to  a  similar 
form. 

That  there  are  as  many  uses  as  there  are  affections. 
55 


5 6  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

That  there  are  genera  and  species  of  affections,  and  dif- 
ferences of  species,  in  infinitum,  and,  in  like  manner,  of 
uses. 

That  there  are  degrees  of  affections  and  uses. 

That  every  use  derives  its  life  from  the  common  use,  and 
that  from  it  flow  in  the  necessary,  the  useful,  and  the  de- 
lightful things  of  life,  according  to  the  quality  of  the  use  and 
the  quality  of  its  affection. 

That  so  far  as  a  man  is  in  the  love  of  use,  so  far  he  is  in 
the  love  of  the  Lord,  so  far  he  loves  Him,  and  loves  his 
neighbor,  and  is  a  man. 

That  a  man  is  not  of  sound  mind  unless  use  be  his  affec- 
tion or  occupation. 

That  a  man  has  eternal  life  according  to  his  affection  of 
use. 

That  a  man's  will  is  his  affection. 

That,  in  the  Word,  to  love  means  to  perform  uses. 
See  John,  xvi :  21,  24  ;  xv  :  9,  10  ;  xxi :  15-17. 

Etc.,  etc. 

NOTE  II. 

IT  is  but  just  to  recognize  the  distinction  which  exists 
between  what  may  be  called  the  egoistic  and  the  altruistic 
schools  of  utilitarian  moralists  ;  but  leaving  aside  the 
pure  and  avowed  egoists,  the  followers  of  Helvetius,  for 
instance,  who  declared  self-love  to  be  the  foundation  of 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  57 

all  morals  and  all  society,  we  are  equally  required  to  dis- 
tinguish between  two  kinds  of  altruism,  namely,  between 
that  which  inculcates  the  love  of  others  for  the  sake  of 
others,  and  that  inculcating  the  love  of  others  for  the 
sake  of  self.  While  the  latter  is,  without  doubt,  only 
egoism  or  self-love,  more  or  less  effectually  concealed, 
even  from  the  subject  himself,  under  the  more  amiable 
traits  of  charity  or  benevolence  or  public  spirit,  it  is 
nevertheless  available  for  the  good  of  society  in  that  Di- 
vine economy  which  regards  the  moral  freedom  of  man 
as  a  most  essential  agent  to  his  regeneration,  and  in- 
cludes in  its  wise  providence  even  the  permission  of  evil. 
The  element  of  selfishness,  lurking  more  or  less  conspicu- 
ously in  all  human  motives,  must  not  lead  us  to  utter  self- 
condemnation.  At  the  same  time,  the  ideal  to  be  striven 
for,  and  the  standard  of  our  real  moral  perfection,  will 
remain  the  principle  of  a  genuine  altruism,  namely,  the 
love  of  others  purely  for  their  good,  or,  at  least,  the  find- 
ing our  own  happiness  first  and  chiefly  in  that  of  others. 
That  this  ultimately  results  in  the  highest  happiness  to 
one's  self,  does  not  detract  from  its  purely  altruistic  char- 
acter. Otherwise  the  perfection  of  society  would  be  the 
negation  of  happiness.  Our  highest  conception  of  the 
happiness  of  God  must  indeed  be  of  that  which  He  ex- 
periences in  the  happiness  of  His  creatures,  and  this 
infinitely,  yet  without  self-love. 


58  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

NOTE  III. 

IN  citing  the  Massachusetts  report,  the  author  would 
not  be  understood  as  presuming  to  infer  a  law  from  a 
single  example  ;  nevertheless,  in  all  reasoning  like  this 
upon  the  method  of  "  concomitant  variations,"  it  is  of  the 
first  importance  that  all  phases  of  a  question  be  exam- 
ined ;  and  the  relation  of  intellectual  education  to  crime 
manifestly  embraces  more  than  a  mere  comparison  be- 
tween the  illiterate  and  the  school-trained  populace.  The 
progress  or  the  decline  in  morality  of  society  as  trained 
in  our  present  public  schools,  is  a  more  pertinent  subject 
of  inquiry.  On  this  point,  Mr.  Richard  Grant  White  has 
written  some  searching  words  in  an  article  in  the  North 
American  Review  for  December,  1880,  entitled  "  The 
Public-School  Failure."  In  this  article  further  statistics 
from  New  England  reports  are  given,  which  throw  valu- 
able light  on  the  question  of  public  morality  as  affecte/ 
by  our  own  much-boasted  free-school  system. 

NOTE  IV. 

IN  using  this  term,  the  conscience  of  use,  the  autK  /r 
would  recall  to  the  reader  the  analogy  drawn  in  the  ear- 
lier part  of  the  essay  between  the  physical,  intellectual, 
and  moral  training.  As  one,  by  a  kind  of  acquired  in- 
tuition, recognizes  that  which  is  agreeable  or  revolting  to 
the  physical  state,  and  so  may  be  said  to  have  always  on 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  59 

the  alert  a  conscience  of  the  agreeable  and  the  disagreeable, 
which  governs  his  bodily  actions  ;  and  as,  in  like  manner, 
our  conscience  of  truth  is  a  constantly  present  standard, 
by  which  we  instinctively  decide  the  verity  or  falsity  of 
statements,  so  the  conscience  of  use  is  regarded  as  an  ac- 
quired sense  of  being  in  harmony  or  in  discord  with  the 
objective  good  of  the  universe,  a  sense  so  quick  and  ur- 
gent that  we  are  prompted  rather  by  a  persistent  feeling 
than  by  any  reflection  or  reason  to  set  ourselves  right 
with  the  Divine  order  of  uses,  in  which  our  true  happi- 
ness finally  lies.  This  feeling  can  be  described,  perhaps, 
as  that  satisfaction  which  is  experienced  in  the  pursuit  of 
all  useful,  congenial  labor,  or,  in  other  words,  in  that  labor 
which  is  the  particular  use  for  which  one  is  by  his  nature 
fitted,  and  also  that  miserable  unrest  and  sense  of  dis- 
satisfaction which  to  all  well-trained  moral  natures  a 
state  of  enforced  idleness  invariably  produces.  A  stronger 
than  any  magnetic  current  seems  to  drive  and  pulsate 
through  the  whole  moral  universe,  beating  at  the  sources 
of  our  life  and  calling  us  to  work.  If  we  yield  and  are 
borne  along,  it  becomes  a  stream  of  quiet,  profound  de- 
light and  peace.  If  we  resist,  or  grow  insensible,  or  lose 
our  conscience  of  use,  we  then  become  like  the  blind  or 
the  deaf,  to  whom  the  beauty  and  the  harmony  of  the 
universe  appeal  in  vain.  The  delight  in  pleasure  is  only 
genuine  delight  when  the  pleasures  are  true  recreations, 


60  THE  NEW  ETHICS. 

that  is,  when  they  restore  the  bodily  and  mental  energies 
for  the  renewal  of  those  labors  in  which  true  happiness 
dwells. 

"  Rest  is  not  quitting 

The  busy  career  ; 

It  is  but  the  fitting 

Of  man  to  his  sphere." 

There  is  nothing  unreasonable  in  teaching  children  to 
regard  their  hours  of  study  or  busy  occupation  as  their 
essentially  happiest  ones,  for  such  they  undoubtedly  are 
when  not  accompanied  with  undue  fatigue  or  excessive 
confinement,  and  to  look  upon  their  pleasures  as  only 
secondarily  happy  or  as  instrumental  to  the  genuine  hap- 
piness of  work.  How  strong  the  natural  impulse  to  use 
is,  is  beautifully  shown  in  the  peculiar  delight  a  child 
feels  in  those  plays  in  which  he  believes  himself  to  be 
constructing  or  performing  somethipg  of  use,  and  his 
manifest  grief  in  finding  that  he  was  deceived  when  his 
little  creation  is  thoughtlessly  cast  aside  by  his  parents. 
And  in  the  more  mature  experience  of  life,  the  happiness 
of  an  employment  is  unquestionably  enhanced  by  the 
consciousness,  even  though  it  be  a  mistaken  one,  of  its 
usefulness  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pleasures  of  leis- 
ure, rest,  and  recreation  are  doubtless  proportionate  to 
the  sense  of  their  having  been  fairly  earned  by  useful  in- 


THE  NEW  ETHICS.  6 1 

dustry,  and  of  their  contributing  to  our  greater  capacity 
for  usefulness  in  the  future. 

And  if  the  Divine  Parent  is  more  tenderly  considerate 
than  earthly  ones  in  not  so  hastily  dispelling  the  fond  il- 
lusions of  those  of  His  children  who  are  happy  in  the 
consciousness  of  useful  endeavors,  even  though  the  re- 
sult be  one  of  mistaken  importance  to  the  great  mass, 
still  this  will  not  be  discordant  with  our  conceptions  of 
His  love  and  of  His  perfect  wisdom  in  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  world. 

URBANA  UNIVERSITY,  O.,  September,  1881. 


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